Episode 8 Doorstep Crime 999

All across the UK, I'm glad to say people are fighting back against rip-off rogue traders,

cold-calling conmen, you name it, they're fighting back!

Well, we're all taking a stance against doorstep crime.

We're also celebrating the work of award-winning police

and Trading Standards teams from all over the UK.

With your invaluable help, we've been busy spreading the message

that these crooks have got to be stopped.

Today, we'll learn how a successful partnership

between Trading Standards and police in Bristol

brought a rogue roofer to justice.

The politest way I could describe these people is as pond scum.

They're manipulative, they're predatory.

The family raising awareness of doorstep crime

to protect others in the community

after their mother was robbed of an unbelievable £270,000.

If there's one positive that's come out of what happened,

it's the fact that more people are reporting this type of crime.

Plus, the Midlands pensioner

who was scammed not once, but twice by doorstep criminals,

costing him £27,000.

It's just so maddening that people...

Here's someone who has already been abused

and they're coming back for more.

Hello and welcome to the programme

and let's get straight away to our first story.

We're off to Bristol,

to find out why it took the combined efforts of both police

and Trading Standards to bring a local rogue to justice.

Over the past two years,

Somerset and Avon Police tell us that they've seen a 60% reduction

in doorstep crime, thanks to the work of two groups.

The Senior Citizens' Liaison Team works in the community

and supports those who've been targeted by conmen.

But today, we're looking at another group.

This one aims to catch cold-calling crooks in the act.

The Doorstep Crime Team was set up in 2009

and it consists of Trading Standards officers and police officers.

It's fairly unique in that the Trading Standards officers

are embedded with police and Trading Standards officers have access

to all police systems for intelligence and that sort of thing.

The Doorstep Crime Team has shown how effective

joint working between police and Trading Standards can be.

While the team is successful,

they face challenges from rogues on their turf.

Detective Sergeant Will Thorpe knows all their rotten tricks.

There are several cases ongoing at the moment.

One particular method that's being used

is in relation to roofing work.

What happens in particular cases is that the person coming

to the door will say that a small amount of work needs to be done,

a down pipe or a section of guttering.

Once that person is there on the roof and doing some further work,

the victim isn't able to see exactly what the state of their roof is

or whether that work is necessary,

and then once one bit of work gets done,

from there on in, it's quite easy to carry on telling the homeowner

that they require further bits of work.

Roofing scams tend to be the most common

and the most lucrative for rogues.

Statistics show that only 10% of this sort of crime is reported

and we can't do anything about it unless people tell us about it.

There you have it, the message is clear,

if you fall victim to doorstep crime, for goodness sake, report it!

76 year-old Bridget Davison is glad she raised the alarm

back in 2010.

At the time,

I was rather vulnerable because my husband had only died

a couple of months before

and it was very upsetting, as you can imagine,

and so obviously, I wasn't functioning on all cylinders.

In this vulnerable state,

Bridget was all-too susceptible to a smooth-talking conman.

I was just coming back from shopping

and I noticed a van parked outside my house

and there was a man standing on the end of the drive,

so as I approached, he said could he speak to me for a minute

and would I like my guttering renewed?

So he quoted me about £300,

which I thought was a reasonable amount, so I agreed to have it done.

The early stages of this particular scam followed a fairly standard

MO for rogue trading offences.

As the work was started,

the boss of the contractors came to the victim

and said that she then needed her roof cleaned.

With the roof washed,

the conman then offered a sealant for Bridget's roof tiles.

He told her this was essential to the protection of the building.

He did not, by the way, quote a price.

This man saw a vulnerable woman

on her own, who obviously, I imagine, came across as

not really thinking straight and thought,

"Bingo. I can probably talk her into anything."

Thankfully the family became aware of what was going on.

They rang the police

and the Doorstep Crime Team swung into action.

They came the following day and were absolutely brilliant

because the thing that had stopped Mum initially telling me

was that she felt stupid.

And the one thing the team didn't do at any time

was make her feel stupid.

Will Thorpe and his team believe that it's essential

to show sensitivity to the victims.

The impact on the victims is huge -

the financial implications of losing their life savings

for work that's not required.

And also what we find is the embarrassment that they feel,

that they've been taken on a ride

and they just feel hugely ashamed of doing that.

Later we'll find out

how the Doorstep Crime team came to Bridget's rescue.

Plus a watchful neighbour keeps an eye out for a Midlands pensioner

who lost more than 20 grand to doorstep crooks.

If you're the neighbour of someone who is vulnerable, keep checking.

Check that they're OK,

check that no one has done anything of this sort.

Now, thanks to the wonders of modern technology,

here's another example of doorstep crime.

My mother was the victim of doorstep crime back in 2009.

And my brother and I received an award in 2010

for recognition of our helping promote

the campaign against doorstep crime

and I'd like to share this with you.

Well, as you know, we do like a success story

and when we looked into it,

we found out the award was made by the Trading Standards Institute.

There's a poignant element to this as well,

because Helen and her brother David

managed to turn a private family tragedy

into something that helped their local community.

This story reveals how devastating

this kind of crime can be to a family.

In 2009, 76 year-old Anne Cornock

was admitted to hospital in South Wales with terminal cancer.

As if this wasn't stressful enough for her loved ones,

they soon heard news that was also harrowing.

It makes you very, very angry

because they basically destroyed the last year of her life.

This is a lady who was hard-working, honest, kind,

wouldn't hurt a fly, and these people persecuted her.

And she ignored the early signs, the physical signs of her cancer,

or contributed them to the stress caused by these people hounding her.

Helen's talking about the shocking discovery

that their mother had been the target of doorstep criminals.

Helen's brother David is a television reporter,

and he takes up his mum's story.

Our mother was in hospital

and I was staying at her home with my family.

I discovered an opened letter from a bank that talked about an overdraft.

This was a complete shock to us,

not just because she had three pensions,

we knew she had a comfortable income,

but because an overdraft was so out of character

for her to borrow money.

And I sort of slept on it, and then I mentioned it to my wife

and we thought we'd better mention it to my sister and we did.

Then we discovered that the reason she had one

was because she'd been the victim of an awful scam.

Anne Cornock had been targeted by a ruthless gang

who cold-called at her house to carry out work on her driveway.

But they kept coming back, to extort money from her.

She'd been subject to a barrage of visits.

Cold-callers, people chasing her for money.

People ringing her all the time, people demanding money

which she had handed over and they kept this delusion going

that she'd overpaid for some work on her house, on her drive,

and if she gave them some more money

they would make sure they got it back.

It was all, it was all very sinister

and it had been going on for 18 months. None of us knew about it.

She kept it totally to herself,

and she was really too proud and embarrassed to tell anyone about it.

Like many victims of doorstep crime,

Anne had chosen to keep these problems to herself,

perhaps hoping they would go away.

Then David and Helen saw for themselves

the real impact that the crime had had on her.

The day I had to go and tell her that my brother and I had found out,

my mother was never the same person again.

She was mortified, totally ashamed, and broke down on me.

And...

..she wasn't the same mother again, mentally.

Of course it was heart-breaking for Helen and David

to discover that their mother had suffered in silence

at the hands of doorstep criminals for 18 months.

In that time, they extorted a staggering amount of money from her.

My mother handed over a number of cash sums

and they would typically be things like £5,000, £6,000, £4,000.

Looking at the dates, it seemed like almost every week

she was handing out, this sort of money.

That's shocking enough in itself, but David and his family discovered

that the rogues hadn't stopped there.

There were two bank transfers totalling £115,000.

Those were the biggest transfers.

The money, my mother was told,

was going to the contractor's accountant.

That turned out to be false, but that was the biggest sum.

There was another bankers draft for £20,000, but she ended up

paying out £272,310

which was more than her whole house was worth.

Just awful. More than £270,000, and for what?

The criminals had done nothing to Anne's house

to warrant any form of payment, yet incredibly,

they had taken virtually every penny she had.

David and Helen brought in the police,

but it was difficult for them to gather evidence,

because Anne was so ill.

Detective Inspector Huw Thomas led the investigation.

We actually interviewed her in hospital which was difficult

for the family, it was difficult for everybody, really,

because she was in such a poor state of health at the time

that her recollection of events was quite poor.

And therefore we never actually got beyond

the people that the money got transferred to.

But I'm certain there's more people out there than we've dealt with.

The larger money transactions were made via Anne's bank,

which meant the police were able to follow a paper trail,

to one of the gang members

From looking at the bank details

and where the money transfers had gone to,

we made some enquiries and we established

that it had gone through the hands of a Sean White.

As a result of our enquiries, then Sean White was arrested

and subsequently dealt with for money laundering offences.

On the 18th March 2010, Sean White was sentenced

to two years imprisonment.

The police also tracked down another member of the gang

called Stephen George, who was given an eight month prison sentence.

For the family, these sentences offered little consolation.

I don't think there'll ever be a sentence

that would suit this for what they did to my mother.

What I do feel for future cases is that the mental torture

should be taken into consideration as well

We were very heartened that the judge took it seriously

from his comments. He was limited in what he could do

in terms of sentencing, but it did send a signal

that if you're involved in this sort of scam, and you get found out,

and you will be found out, you'll get sent to jail.

The tragedy of what happened to Anne continues to be painful,

but Helen and David have raised awareness in the local community,

in the hope that no other family should have to experience

the same heartache that they've been through.

The police and Trading Standards

got in touch with us after the court case

because they were concerned about this sort of crime

and they wanted to highlight the dangers of it.

They asked us if we could help with a campaign launch,

which we were happy to do.

We gave interviews and helped with the publicity for that,

just to highlight the sort of scams that are going on,

and the way that they target people

who you might not think are vulnerable,

but clearly they're still managing to get away with it.

In 2010, David and his sister Helen were awarded

with a Trading Standards Institute Local Heroes Award,

for their work in highlighting doorstep crime.

We received the nomination

for David Cornock and Helen O'Neil in 2010.

It came from the Welsh heads of Trading Standards.

And as soon as we read the nomination,

we were just as impressed and inspired as they had been,

just by what they had achieved in such a short period of time

and how they had been able

to put aside their personal grief and anger and frustration,

following their mother's death,

and channel all that into helping others.

So it really was an inspiring story

and we wanted to recognise that with our Hero award.

It was great that it was acknowledged

that my brother and I had helped to raise awareness

against doorstep crime,

but bitter, however, because of what our mother had to endure,

and we'd had to experience that first hand as a family.

I can truly understand how Helen feels.

Even so, Detective Inspector Thomas has noticed the big difference

their publicity work has made

in tackling doorstep crime in South Wales.

If there's one positive that's come out of what happened to Mrs Cornock,

it's the fact that more people are reporting this type of crime.

And it doesn't matter whether it's £200, £20,000

or in this case £270,000.

You're not wasting anybody's time.

If you think that something suspicious is going on,

please, please ring us.

There's nothing more frustrating than knowing that stuff's going on

but not being told about it.

If you see people acting suspiciously in the area

or if you've just heard something about somebody having work done

and they're not quite happy with it, give us a ring.

If we can't help you, we'll certainly find somebody who can.

It's incredible that David and Helen have been able to turn

such a tragic sequence of events

into something positive for their community.

Our deepest thanks go to them for sharing a very painful story.

It's a timely reminder that we must all look out for each other,

and in particular, those in our community who need a helping hand.

Now, it's time to return to Bristol.

Earlier, we looked at the work of the Doorstep Crime Team,

and the rogue roofer who tried to con 76 year-old Bridget Davison.

I felt that I'd been a bit of a sucker, really,

to be persuaded into something

that didn't really need doing,

and also to accept that they should do it

without first of all getting a price.

Bridget had been recently bereaved. Now she felt trapped.

The man who I had first spoken to outside

came into the house.

And he said to me that he'd got a very good deal

on a spray for the roof which would protect it and seal it

and that he'd noticed that I had quite a bit of moss on my roof tiles

and that that didn't do them any good.

No price had been quoted for this particular work,

which was later found to be unnecessary.

My brother turned up and did try and talk to the second-in-command

'to get a price from him. This chap was very vague,'

wouldn't really come up with anything concrete,

but gave a vague price of about £4,000.

Yes, you heard right. £4,000!

And when experts looked at what had been done,

it clearly wasn't worth it.

In this particular case, we commissioned a surveyor's report,

and he found that the work was not only completely worthless,

but it may have actually led to damage to the roof as well.

And, in fact, we were never able to establish

the technical specifications

of what product had allegedly been put on the roof.

Roofing cons are the most complained-about cold calling scams.

Victims stand to lose a small fortune.

'The average cost is between £5,000 and £10,000.

'When they discover that that work hasn't been done properly,'

they feel foolish, and they won't come forward and report it.

What we generally find is that relatives come and contact us.

'The cost is then even more significant'

because they've got to repair completely valueless work.

Thankfully Bridget had not yet paid for this scam.

The rogue had arranged to collect the money a few days later.

The Doorstep Crime team quickly set up plain clothes officers,

to catch the crook when he came back.

That morning, we were waiting. And within a short time,

around the time that he said he was going to come back,

we saw him turn up and approach the lady's front doorstep.

Myself and my colleagues approached him,

and as I was walking down the driveway

I identified myself to him as a police officer.

At that particular point,

I remember the colour draining from his face. He was shocked.

Bridget dodged this crime, just in the nick of time.

The Police and the Trading Standards people were very good, I thought.

Very thorough and quick

and supportive of me in a vulnerable position.

The conman, Billy Brede,

was convicted in March 2011 of two offences of unfair trading.

He was given a fine and ordered to pay costs of more than £4,000.

When we do get that sort of result from a case,

it's extremely satisfying

because we're taking rogue traders off the street

and we're protecting members of the public at the same time.

When the case came to court,

I felt very relieved that they had, erm...

..caught him and that he wouldn't perhaps be able to con anybody else

into having a job done that they didn't really need or want.

The politest way I could describe these people is as pond scum.

They're manipulative, they're predatory

and they specifically target vulnerable, older people.

Mainly women, I imagine,

but men could find themselves in the same situation.

And the thing with that generation

is that they don't feel they can be rude.

Well, you can be as rude as you like to these people.

You don't owe them a thing. They're scum.

I couldn't have put it better myself!

Your letters and e-mails have continued to really intrigue us.

Jane McDonald recalls a man knocking at her door

and saying there were some slates loose on her roof.

She said, "My brother-in-law's a builder.

"I'll get him to take a look. Thanks for pointing it out."

Apparently, he was still picking his jaw up from the floor

as she shut the door promptly in his face.

As it turned out, Jane's brother-in-law really was a builder,

but later she realised the man could have been a con artist at the door,

and judging from his reaction,

he wasn't expecting the answer she gave.

So a polite but firm rebuttal seems to be a very good way

of dealing with unwanted callers.

It certainly would have helped the man in our next story.

87 year-old John Green was a well-known character

in the West Midlands town where he'd lived for many years.

He died in 2010, but his neighbour is keen to tell his story.

He'd like to keep his identity private, so we'll call him Michael.

John was always out and about. Everyone in the area knew him.

He was just always on the lookout for how he could help.

I looked out for John, we looked out for John,

but he also looked out for us. It was a mutual swap of support.

On a December morning in 2009, two men appeared at John's door

claiming to be from a roofing company.

They were in fact a pair of doorstepping rogue builders.

Dean Anthony Madden was 42 at the time, and Mark Duggan was 44.

They claimed that John's chimneys needed urgent repair.

Also, that new building regulations meant the lead flashing on his roof

was now of the wrong width and would need replacing.

It was, of course, complete rubbish.

The tactics Madden and Duggan used were scare tactics in a way.

Mr Green, who was a vulnerable,

'elderly man who lived by himself,

'he's got no way of getting up on that roof'

and checking whether the work needed doing.

John agreed to the work at a staggering cost of £2,250,

with a cash payment up front of £1,250.

In typical rogue trader style, the gang started work on the roof right away,

before John could even change his mind.

Luckily, watchful neighbour Michael saw that something was up.

I went to check what was happening and that's when he told me

'that they were coming back to get more money from him.

'I knew that it couldn't possibly be true and so I rang the police.'

This local hero did the right thing,

particularly as John had fallen victim

to doorstepping criminals several times in the past.

We would say to him that if anyone knocks on the door

'telling you need some work done

'come to us or our other neighbours, come to anyone and check it out.'

Let us check it out.

We knew how vulnerable he was and we wanted to support him.

Now, thanks to Michael's phone call

Mark Beesley and his Trading Standards team

were ready and waiting with the police

when the scammers came to call the following day.

We saw the van drive up to the front of Mr Green's house.

Dean Madden knocked on the door

and he was a bit surprised to see a police officer standing there.

Duggan and Madden were told to keep away from the house

while a survey was carried out. And you've guessed it -

the survey concluded that the work was quite unnecessary.

Well, thankfully Duggan and Madden were arrested

and a court date was set.

But the really upsetting thing about this particular case

is that having already been subjected to one scam,

John's good nature was about to be taken advantage of yet again,

and believe it or not he was scammed out of a staggering £26,000!

After the people were arrested John told me

that two other people had come to his front door posing as officials

and telling him that because he was the one who had reported

'the matter to the police that he was responsible for paying

'all of the court costs and they, over a period of time,

'took multiple thousands from him.

'I don't know exactly how much it was, but it was a lot of money,'

and again it's just so maddening that people...

Here's someone who has already been abused

and they're coming back for more.

It was a shocking revelation

and coupled with Duggan and Madden's scam,

it would ultimately prove just too much for poor John.

There's no doubt in my mind that the stress and worry

of a lengthy investigation had some kind of impact

on Mr Green and his health.

I think in the end John wasn't as concerned about the financial loss

as the stress and embarrassment of being duped,

having his trust broken.

That mattered more to him than the actual money.

John died in October 2010,

so he wasn't able to see Duggan and Madden taken to court,

where it transpired that the pair had also scammed an elderly woman

out of almost £7,000.

Dean Madden and Mark Duggan admitted conspiracy to defraud

and were jailed for two years, eight months,

and two-and-a-half years respectively.

'This case highlights the importance'

that neighbours, friends and families can have

'in protecting the elderly in our society.'

If you are the potential victim, tell someone

but also if you're the neighbour of someone who is vulnerable,

keep checking. Check that they're OK,

check that no-one has done anything of this sort.

Many thanks, Michael, for sharing John's story with us

and indeed for that very worthwhile advice.

Now before we go, time for Trish Marshall's note.

She says that West Sussex Trading Standards

give window stickers to its residents on request.

Then the stickers can be put on the front door

to inform cold callers that they're simply unwelcome.

I think that's a great tip. Thank you for that, Trish.

We'd love to hear more about how you've managed to stop

doorstep crooks from ripping you off.

bbc.co.uk is our website, and that's exactly where you can find

all the details about how to get in touch with us.

May I just say thank you for watching

and clearly I hope you'll join us again next time. From us, bye-bye.

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